Latest Technology

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Independent artists using DistroKid to share their music will now have another avenue on TikTok. A deal announced today between the video platform and DistroKid could bring millions of songs by independent artists to TikTok Music, the platform’s subscription-driven streaming service launched earlier this year . The service, so far, is limited to just a handful of countries — Indonesia, Brazil, Australia, Mexico, and Singapore — but could be appealing to up-and-coming musicians looking for a viral breakout. DistroKid artists already had the option to add their music to TikTok’s library , but today’s announcement expands that feature to TikTok Music. Additionally, artists have had the option to upload their music to TikTok’s Commercial... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/fNOnIdv

Image: Atari Atari is acquiring Digital Eclipse, a studio that specializes in preserving and rereleasing retro games on modern hardware. The releases are often rich in additional materials and historical content. Think the Criterion Collection but for video games . In a press release , Atari says it’s paying up to $20 million for the studio, including an initial $6.5 million paid in a combination of cash and shares and a further $13.5 million, which is due to be paid in cash over the next decade subject to Digital Eclipse’s performance. It expects to complete the deal in the coming days. The two companies previously worked together on last year’s excellent Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration , which included ports of over 90 classic games as well as... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/WcJlaoV

There’s a reason the event footage looked as good as it did, and that’s likely down to the fancy equipment used alongside the iPhone 15 Pro Max. | Image: Apple via Halideapp Behind-the-scenes footage of Apple’s Monday evening Scary Fast event reveals how it was filmed using an iPhone 15 Pro Max... with the aid of a full suite of professional recording equipment and studio lighting. Still images and a video reveal that (unsurprisingly) a great deal of fancy equipment — from drones, gimbals, dollies, industrial set lighting, and other recording accessories — is still required to make iPhone footage look this good. Apple has utilized similar but far less extreme setups for previous events that were filmed using iPhones, including the Burberry spring / summer 2014 fashion show . It’s a neat way to promote the recording quality of iPhone cameras, but it’s not like everyday folks can recreate these kinds of results... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/Sogt

The keyboard and buttons are an ode to all things Nintendo. The retro NES styling of the mechanical keyboard is one thing, but the accompanying programmable buttons steal the show. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/HV4hn2l

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta is launching a paid subscription that will remove ads from Facebook and Instagram. The service is available throughout the European Union and will be offered for around €9.99 per month on the web or €12.99/month on iOS and Android to account for those platform’s additional fees. The subscription is meant to address concerns by the European Union around Meta’s ad targeting and data collection practices. By making users choose between paying for the service to remove ad targeting or using the service for free but consenting to its data collection practices, Meta believes it will have more clearly and definitively met requirements under a collection of European data laws, including the Digital Markets Act and GDPR. “We respect the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/EHopCjU

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge It’s incredible that Resident Evil Village plays as well as it does on the iPhone. The game is every bit as captivating as when I first played it on the PS5, and I was blown away by how well it translated to the tinier screen. But the game’s graphics aren’t the most interesting thing going on with this release — I’m much more excited for what it might be teasing for Apple gaming in the future. Let’s start by talking about Village first. I’ve only played for a little over an hour on a prerelease version of the game on an iPhone 15 Pro Max — long enough to survive the attack by the Lycans in the snowy village. One area the port doesn’t translate well is to the iPhone’s touchscreen. I tried to use the game’s touch controls, but they were... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/9V1LMWJ

The Galaxy S23 and S23 Plus. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Samsung’s Android 14-based One UI 6 update is leaving beta on the Galaxy S23 in Europe, users in the region are reporting. Across X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and Reddit, people are seeing the update roll out in countries including the UK , France , Germany , Poland , Spain , and Portugal . While many are updating from the beta version of One UI 6, some are receiving a larger 3GB patch to update from the stable version of One UI 5.1. While the update appears to be limited to S23 users in European markets for now, Samsung’s approach in previous years suggests that a stable US release won’t be far behind. The company’s Android 13-based One UI 5 update started rolling out for European Galaxy S22 owners around October 24th last year ,... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/vQ86O4r

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is starting to block “unauthorized” Xbox controllers and accessories from being used on Xbox consoles. Resetera posters spotted a warning about the block last week, with some third-party Xbox controllers now throwing up a “connected accessory is not authorized” warning when connected to an Xbox console. It’s unclear if Microsoft is trying to target cheat devices, or whether the Xbox maker is trying to push its official partner program. An error has now started appearing for some third-party Xbox controllers, alongside a warning that notes the accessory will be blocked from further use after two weeks. “From the moment you connect an unauthorized accessory and receive error code 0x82d60002, you’ll have two weeks to use the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/4y6muH9

Image: The Verge YouTube’s NFL Sunday Ticket streams have been plagued with buffering and pixelation, making afternoon games today unwatchable, according to many, many posts. The @TeamYouTube account acknowledged the issue at 1:53PM ET. The team wrote that they're aware YouTube is having issues and they are working to fix them, but acknowledged that “YouTube TV or NFL Sunday Ticket may also be impacted.” Now that YouTube is the only place to watch NFL Sunday Ticket , that leaves viewers across the country with no options to watch games apart from any available local broadcasts. People have taken to X to complain that streams are freezing up or lagging , or that it’s just like watching illegal streams . And plenty of them point out the money factor . NFL... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/iOgAk0D

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Android apps are about to get better built-in passkey support. Google announced in a developer blog post last week that Credential Manager, a new Android-specific API for storing credentials like username and password combinations and passkeys, is going public on November 1st. Credential Manager, which has been in developer preview for months , houses biometric authentication of passkeys, traditional passwords, and federated identity login under one roof in Android phones. Ultimately, the change should allow apps to offer better authentication support in Android 14. Using Credential Manager, apps can offer users easy biometric logins through passkeys. That should mean a more friction-free sign-in experience since people who use that... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/s1tSA3Y

Image: Apple I’m trying to remember the last time a company’s big event came for prime time TV the way Apple’s 8pm ET keynote is trying to lock down our attention tomorrow. The only company I can think of that’s done it successfully lately is Victoria’s Secret with its Fashion Show. While I suspect there’s some overlap in audience between that and an Apple Keynote, I also suspect Bella Hadid is a bigger draw than a new iMac. But Apple is still going for it! Promising a keynote that will air on its website, YouTube, and over Apple TV while things like Monday Night Football airs on broadcast TV. The company is ready to take all the cultural cache its phones, Bluetooth headsets, and computers have earned it and convert that fanbase into a bigger... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/kh4p8lg

Image: William Joel / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 12, your guide to the best and Verge -iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome. I’m so psyched you found us, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage .) This week, I’ve been testing the Superlist tasks app, reading about the high-stakes race to crack crypto wallets , rehearsing my case for buying an e-bike , taking voice notes like a boss with Whisper Memos , and avoiding all my problems by watching Between Two Ferns bloopers on YouTube. I also have for you a new pair of AR glasses, a Netflix thriller, all the great sci-fi you could ever need, a great parenting app, a super-deep interview about Windows, a new puzzling platform, and a bunch more. As always, of... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/teoMuF1

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge Netflix is at an all-time high. Disney is cracking down on password sharing. And Apple TV Plus has doubled its prices. Will the streaming squeeze ever end? Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/qbvkmaw

The Journal app itself is incredibly basic — it’s the Moments page that’s really interesting. | Image: David Pierce / Apple The Apple Journal app is so simple that, at first, it felt like I was missing something. The whole app is just one screen: a reverse-chronological timeline of your journal entries, with a big plus button down at the bottom. I hit the plus, and an overlay appeared with some options: tap “new entry” at the top, or respond to one of Journal’s “reflection” prompts. “What could you do to make someone’s day better this week?” one of them asks. “Write about a time you found an unexpected solution to a hard problem,” reads another. When you’re creating a journal entry, you can add photos and video, record a voice memo, or log a location associated with your entry. When you’re looking at the timeline, you can filter to see only the entries with... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2jKZRGn

Image: Sega With Sonic Superstars , I’m starting to get the feeling I’ve been here before. In Sonic ’s return to the 2D format, there’s a good game here with lots of moments where I was pleased to see the innovation of Sonic Team shining through. These ideas were, unfortunately, buried in slower-than-it-should-be-for-a- Sonic -game moments with technical issues and unintuitive boss fights. For Superstars , I really, really wanted another Sonic Mania . That game was sublime , and I feel like both Sonic Team and Sonic fans have been chasing that high ever since. I can say Superstars did not deliver as Mania did but also did not frustrate me as badly as Sonic Frontiers did . There were no moments when I wanted to put either my controller or my head through a... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/b4q2Vs5

The new compact mode in the Xbox app. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Microsoft has started testing new updates to its Xbox app on Windows 11 that improve the experience on handheld devices and smaller screens. In an Xbox test app released earlier this week, Microsoft has introduced a new compact mode that greatly reduces the sidebar on the left-hand side. Compact mode is designed to improve “the experience on handhelds and small screens,” according to Microsoft — it also works on any size screen. It’s a relatively minor UI change, but very welcome on devices like the ROG Ally where you only have a 7-inch display. Windows 11 is a pretty cramped experience on the ROG Ally, and improvements to the Xbox app are an encouraging first step towards what we hope will be some type of handheld mode for Windows. E... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/JOfY93Z

Only supervised operations will go ahead while Cruise halts it’s autonomous robotaxi services across the US. | Image: Cruise Cruise, the autonomous vehicle operator backed by General Motors, says it decided to “proactively pause” its fleet of driverless cars across the United States. The operations halt comes just two days after Californian regulators suspended Cruise’s robotaxi permit in the state, claiming that its vehicles “are not safe for public operation.” Earlier this month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that it was investigating Cruise after receiving reports of pedestrian injuries involving the company’s driverless vehicles. One notable incident that occurred on October 2nd in San Francisco resulted in a woman becoming pinned under a Cruise robotaxi after being struck by another driver and thrown into the path of the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/1lFzNJY

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is starting to roll out new changes to Windows Ink that let you write anywhere you can type in Windows 11. After months of previewing the changes , the handwriting-to-text conversion now works inside search boxes and other elements of Windows 11 where you’d normally type your input. Microsoft has started rolling out the KB5031455 non-security update as a preview to Windows 11 users yesterday. You simply have to head to Windows Update and toggle the “Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available” setting to get this update before it’s available fully in the coming weeks. The Windows Ink update also includes gestures for edit fields If you have a Surface device with a stylus or any other Windows tablet that supports Windows... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/BrH2Ymb

Illustration by Hugo Herrera for The Verge The UK’s Online Safety Bill, a wide-ranging piece of legislation that aims to make the country “ the safest place in the world to be online ” received royal assent today and became law. The bill has been years in the making and attempts to introduce new obligations for how tech firms should design, operate, and moderate their platforms. Specific harms the bill aims to address include underage access to online pornography , “ anonymous trolls ,” scam ads , the nonconsensual sharing of intimate deepfakes, and the spread of child sexual abuse material and terrorism-related content. Although it’s now law, online platforms will not need to immediately comply with all of their duties under the bill, which is now known as the Online Safety Act. UK... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/0YmKQcs

A Greek tragedy in the Southern District of New York. | Photo Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Michael M. Santiago, Bloomberg, Klmax, Whyframestudio, Yevgen Romanenko, Pixhook, Peter Dazeley, Jimkruger, Getty Images The prosecution’s case against Sam Bankman-Fried had a lot of collateral damage. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/5KbeYAi

A drone flying outside of that abandoned train station that Ford wants to turn into an innovation hub. | Image: Michigan Central Detroit’s Michigan Central Station, the once beautiful but now abandoned train station that Ford is rehabilitating into an innovation and technology hub , is about to be swarmed by drones. The Ford subsidiary that operates the train station, Michigan Central, announced today that it’s teaming up with the state’s Department of Transportation (MDOT) to test out the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAM), or drones, to deliver medicine, food, and other small items to nearby residents. Image: Michigan Central The drone delivery testing will take place in what’s being called Detroit’s Advanced Aerial Innovation Region, an area within a three-mile radius of Michigan Central Station in which drones can conduct deliveries... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/m7vEtU0

Like many instructors, Janani Umamaheswar occasionally checks Rate My Professors to monitor her course reviews. The site offers a loose barometer of how you are doing as a teacher, especially early in a career in academia. Since users post anonymously, including criticisms and rants, the site can also become a fount of anxiety. When negative reviews do appear, any professor might speculate: How often are people checking my page? Could this reflect poorly on my future employment? And in particular, who posted the criticism? They might run down the mental list of students who received low grades or did not get a requested extension or rarely spoke in class. They might wonder if a user is even a former student or if they ever took their... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/CDv8QLs

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Intel’s latest 14th Gen chips aren’t a huge improvement over the 13th Gen in gaming performance, but a new Intel Application Optimization (APO) feature might just change that. Intel’s new APO app simply runs in the background, improving performance in games. It offers impressive boosts to frame rates in games that support it, like Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege and Metro Exodus . Intel Application Optimization essentially directs application resources in real time through a scheduling policy that fine-tunes performance for games and potentially even other applications in the future. It operates alongside Intel’s Thread Director, a technology that’s designed to improve how apps and games are assigned to performance or efficiency cores... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/VLjmDRI

Mainstream and TikTok fame collides. | Image: TikTok TikTok is taking its viral sounds offline and hosting an in-person music festival in December, the company announced today. And of course, the entire thing will be livestreamed via TikTok Live. The event, called TikTok In the Mix, will feature top artists like Cardi B, Anitta, Charlie Puth, and Niall Horan — as well as the lesser-known artists behind the soundtracks to hundreds of thousands of videos. The company describes TikTok In the Mix as the For You page come to life, with performances, small business pop-ups, and “creator activations” happening at the event. The festival will take place in Mesa, Arizona on December 10th, and fans will be able to purchase presale tickets via the TikTok app on Friday. Hopefully the crowd will... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/40KFlPd

The Air 2 glasses in their graphite and red models. | Image: Xreal Xreal is opening preorders for its latest generation of augmented reality glasses, the Xreal Air 2 and Air 2 Pro, for a November release in the US, UK, Germany, France, and Italy. The glasses are a follow-up to the first-generation Air glasses released last year under the company’s former name Nreal. Starting at $399, they plug into phones, computers, and a variety of gaming devices to project a display through a pair of sunglasses. The Air 2 glasses are an iterative upgrade from the original $379 Air. They use Micro OLED displays to project a 1920 x 1080 pixel display in front of your eyes, the same resolution as the original Air. But they promise a brighter image than their predecessors (500 nits, compared to 400 nits on the Air) and... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/kbfeo06

The number of people paying for Spotify Premium rose three percent to 226 million on a quarterly basis as the streaming service announced price increases across the US and several other global markets . Spotify’s monthly active users (MAUs) also rose to 574 million as of September 30th, a four percent increase from last quarter. Both rises were slightly above Spotify’s forecast. Comparing performance year over year, Premium subscribers were up 16 percent while MAUs were up 26 percent. Spotify says the net growth in monthly active users was the second largest third-quarter increase in its history. Spotify’s latest subscriber figures came as part of today’s earnings report, which covers the three months ending September 30th. In the midst... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/KhT9mGr

Texts is a messaging app... for all your messaging apps. | Image: Texts Automattic , the company that runs WordPress.com, Tumblr, Pocket Casts, and a number of other popular web properties , just made a different kind of acquisition: it’s buying Texts , a universal messaging app, for $50 million. Texts is an app for all your messaging apps. You can use it to log in to WhatsApp, Instagram, LinkedIn, Signal, iMessage, and more and see and respond to all your messages in one place. ( Beeper is another app doing similar things .) The app also offers some additional features like AI-generated responses and summaries, but its primary purpose is to unify your many inboxes into a single interface. Matt Mullenweg, Automattic’s CEO, says Texts is not just a product acquisition but also the beginning of a huge new... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/dtsNahO

Image: Insomniac Games Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has become the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios title in the 24 hours following its release, Sony announced on Monday. The game sold over 2.5 million copies in just one day. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was developed by PlayStation Studios’ Insomniac Games. As the fastest-selling first-party PlayStation title, it dethrones God of War Ragnarok , which sold 5.1 million copies during its launch week last year. The first Marvel’s Spider-Man also got the fastest-selling first-party crown following its release in 2018, selling 3.3 million copies in its first three days. Great news, Spidey fans -- Marvel's #SpiderMan2PS5 has sold more than 2.5 million copies in the first 24 hours. Thanks for making this a high-flying launch! p... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/DMlUzqy

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The next big Snapdragon chip headed to Android phones is likely to be announced this week — and details have leaked early revealing a heavy focus on AI. According to MSPoweruser , Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will support some handy and creative AI camera tools, including the ability to remove objects from videos, expand areas of a photo, and generate fake backgrounds. The leaked marketing materials also boast about the chip’s ability to run various AI models, including both Stable Diffusion and Meta’s Llama 2. Making that happen is supposed to be an upgraded Hexagon neural processor, which the leaked document says is 98 percent faster (presumably than last year’s processor, but the image doesn’t clarify). Qualcomm showed off t... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/NKP2Qj9

New device types, including robot vacuums, smoke alarms, washing machines and refrigerators are coming to Matter. | Photo Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge One year in, and Matter is adding support for fridges, robot vacuums, smoke alarms, and more. It’s a major step toward a complete smart home, but success hinges on platform and manufacturer follow-through. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/BNUuw8s

Now your mom and dad can help you find your next potential partner and stop dunking on your questionable dating choices. | Image: Tinder If you’re the kind of person who asks friends and family for help with your love life, Tinder is aiming to make things a little easier by letting them suggest potential partners for you directly within the app. Tinder’s new Matchmaker feature lets users invite their loved ones, regardless of whether they have a Tinder profile or not, to view and recommend potential matches, essentially integrating a “friend test” into the dating app. Tinder Matchmaker is available now in 15 countries including the US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, and Germany, with a global rollout expected “in the coming months.” Users can start a Matchmaker session either directly from a profile card, or within the app settings — creating a link that can be shared... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/CPFvdDG

Metal Gear Solid 3 protagonist “Naked Snake.” | Image: Konami It’s hard to fault the breadth of content Konami has included in its tantalizingly-named ‘Vol. 1’ collection. Just don’t go in expecting many modern upgrades to these decades-old titles. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/tQoY0UJ

Image: The Verge Whether you want everything but the kitchen sink or top-tier performance for a midtier price, you’ve got options. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/oMWbKDw

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge October starting to slip away, and so far, all we’ve gotten was a very confusing Apple Pencil , despite rumors of iMacs and iPads . Well, it sounds like that new 24-inch M3-powered iMac is on its way this month after all. Mark Gurman thinks so, having written in his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg today that it’s coming very soon — as early as October 30th, in fact. That would end, as Gurman notes, an over 900-day drought since the M1 iMac launched in the first half of 2021. Gurman writes that he was “told that Apple is planning a Mac-centered product launch around the end of this month.” He adds that if you try to order the iMac, 13-inch MacBook Pro , and either of the other higher-end Pro models, several of their configurations aren’t... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/djEyWc3

Image: William Joel / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 11, your guide to the best and Verge -iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome to the Installer verse, which is officially a thing now — we did it, everybody — and you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage .) I’m traveling this week, so I’ve got a slightly abbreviated issue for you. But there’s just way too much good stuff not to share. This week, I’m spending all my free time playing Subpar Pool , testing Twine as my new go-to Android RSS reader, watching Zane Lowe talk music with Blink-182 , learning about the incredible work of the masters of film set design , reading Cory Doctorow’s new book, The Internet Con , finally for real canceling some too-expensive streaming... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/8B2UVPy

Courtesy of the Toronto International Film Festival Director Ali Kalthami’s debut feature film, Mandoob, takes a fascinating look into the world of Saudi Arabia’s rideshare and delivery drivers. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/x326M1I

Diablo IV , the spookiest of dungeon crawlers, will be steeply discounted through Halloween. | Blizzard It’s hard to believe, but Halloween is now just a little over a week away. Luckily, if you haven’t had a chance to celebrate spooky season, a bunch of horror games are on sale this weekend. Now through October 31st, for example, Nintendo is taking up to 85 percent off digital Bethesda titles like the remastered Quake 2 (now $3.99) and Doom Eternal (now $15.99). Amazon Prime subscribers, meanwhile, can snag a free copy of Doom 3 — an Xbox 360-era classic — for PC until November 18th. Yet perhaps the best Halloween sale comes courtesy of Microsoft, which is taking up to 75 percent off hundreds of digital horror games through October 31st as a part of its Shocktober sale . The ongoing promo extends to newer Xbox titles like Blasphemous 2... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/XcO1xb4

Image: Microsoft Microsoft and Sony have both spent thousands of dollars this week in marketing campaigns at The Sphere in Las Vegas. The $2.3bn attraction has been lighting up social media for weeks now, after U2 played the first-ever show at The Sphere last month . On Thursday night Microsoft lit up The Sphere with its new Xbox marketing campaign, and just a day later Sony chose The Sphere to showcase Spider-Man 2 . Both companies may have paid as much as $450,000 to get their campaigns displayed on The Sphere, after pricing for creative spots at the attraction leaked earlier this month . Microsoft worked with BCN Visuals to create its Xbox Sphere takeover on Thursday night, with a fully anamorphic 3D billboard on display that was similar to the takeovers... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/1sPTl6D

The 2013 Moto X, Nexus 4, and iPhone 13 Mini. I pine for the days this size was normal. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge Ever Googled for “Best Small Phones”? I’ll save you the click: the guides you’ll find feature phones that are old, underpowered, or simply not small to begin with. I’ve long been a small phone guy. I loved my 2013 Moto X, with its 4.7-inch screen, and I’ve used a 5.4-inch iPhone Mini for years. But when Apple discontinued the Mini last month, I decided it was time to jump ship. I saved my money for the Pixel 8, figuring I’d eventually learn to live with a “new normal” of 6.2-inch handsets. But for gadget enthusiasts like me, Google had other plans: it’s arbitrarily pushing buyers to the ginormous Pixel 8 Pro instead , bragging about how its larger handset can handle niftier features even though both phones have the same cameras and chips .... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/8U5fFsI

Image: Nintendo Even though he doesn’t speak, in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Mario says more than he ever has in any game previous. Beyond his “wahoos” and “okey dokeys,” this Mario has a real personality, facilitated by a suite of power-ups and Nintendo’s meticulous attention to detail. Though we’ve seen a bit of this new personality in the movie , the Mario in Wonder is the most expressive I’ve ever seen him, reinventing a character that has largely remained a blank-ish slate for the last 30 years. Wonde r’s positive reviews will undoubtedly make it a staple on every game of the year ballot. As my colleague Andrew Webster wrote , “ Wonder manages to pull from classics like Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3 , while firmly updating the formula with a... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/uJXELRM

The mobile app isn’t for everyone, but for one insomniac, Pikachu and Snorlax made a big difference. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://www.theverge.com/23893260/pokemon-sleep-insomnia-app-nintendo-aid

Google Photos has a clever new feature for your group photos. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge There are a few things you can always depend on in photography, and one is that someone will always be blinking or making a weird face in a group photo. You can try taking 20 photos in rapid succession to increase your chances that everyone will look their best in one of them, but that’s not foolproof — and you’ll often wind up with a photo you’re only sort of happy with. But what if you could remix your group shots with the best faces from different photos in your series? That’s the theory behind Best Take, Google Photos’ new — and somewhat controversial — editing tool. Best Take is available now on the Google Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro , but we expect it to come to older Pixel phones sometime in the near future. The way it works is... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/947MNv8

X’s community notes feature isn’t doing much to prevent the spread. | Illustration: The Verge The vast majority of viral misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war being posted on X (formerly Twitter) is being pushed by verified users, according to a recent study by NewsGuard — a for-profit organization that rates the trustworthiness of news sites. After analyzing the 250 most-engaged X posts between October 7th and October 14th that promoted incorrect or unverified information relating to the war, researchers at NewsGuard found that verified X accounts were behind 74 percent of it. The 250 posts analyzed within the study promoted one of 10 false or unsubstantiated war narratives identified by NewsGuard, including claims that CNN had staged footage of its news crew under attack in Israel, and videos claiming to show Israeli or... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/TI8lZ3y

If you’re an urban-dwelling electric vehicle owner, your public charging options are often limited to slow AC chargers found in tight parking spaces that are too small for typical DC fast chargers. Now Gravity, the company that started an EV taxi fleet in New York City in 2021, designed a compact and super fast DC charging system for big dense cities that can reduce your charging time from hours to just minutes. Gravity’s system includes small dispenser boxes that the company calls “Distributed Energy Access Points,” which can be mounted above or in front of a parking spot and deliver up to a ridiculously high 500kW of energy. That compares to DC fast charging stations from other companies, which have larger stall units and max out at... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/aJML2Xq

Here’s something to stop you from hiding your tired face in early morning meetings. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A highly requested feature, according to Google, is finally being introduced in Google Meet that allows users to apply ‘beauty’ effects during video calls. Announced in a Google Workspace update on Wednesday, portrait touch-up is currently rolling out to Google Meet on mobile devices for early adopters, with an extended rollout to remaining accounts scheduled to begin on October 28th. Google said it also plans to bring the portrait touch-up feature to Google Meet on the web “by the end of 2023.” There are two portrait modes available that provide different levels of complexion smoothing, under-eye lightening, and teeth whitening. “Subtle” mode, as the name suggests, provides very light cosmetic adjustments, while “Smoothing” mode is a... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/lSR2FMK

Illustration: The Verge WhatsApp is beta testing the ability to send voice messages that can only be listened to once by their intended recipient, WABetaInfo reports . The feature, which is currently only available to a limited number of Android and iOS users running the beta version of the app, is reportedly accessible by tapping a small “1” icon that appears to the right of the voice note waveform when recording. “After sending the voice note with the view once mode enabled, you won’t be able to listen to it and the recipient can no longer listen to the voice note after dismissing it,” WABetaInfo reports. The Meta-owned messaging service already has a similar “View Once” feature for photos and videos that it launched in 2021 , so it makes sense it would expand... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/yHFKOiv

Solar panels, part of renovations done under the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program, sit on the roof of New York City Housing Authority’s Ocean Bay Apartments in New York, NY. | Bess Adler/Bloomberg via Getty Images The Biden administration on Thursday announced $100 million in funding to make low-income homes in the US more energy efficient and resilient to climate change. It will also start taking applications Thursday for a new credit program aimed at making it more affordable for low-income communities to install small solar and wind projects. Both programs are funded through the Inflation Reduction Act. New technologies like heat pumps and solar panels that can save energy, lower utility bills, and prevent greenhouse gas emissions often come with a hefty price tag initially. While costs tend to drop over time with greater adoption, this usually leaves low-income households last in line. These programs aim to flip that on its head

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is embracing news from “authoritative sources” at a time when Meta is reluctant to promote hard news or politics on Threads and X owner Elon Musk has taken a dismissive stance toward “ legacy media .” Google’s video platform is rolling out a new “immersive watch page experience” on mobile that’s designed to suggest more news content when users are watching news videos. It also plans to spend $1.6 million to promote the creation of news content for its shortform Shorts service. The new YouTube watch page will appear when you open a video that has a newspaper icon and will highlight relevant longform videos, livestreams, podcasts, and Shorts videos beneath your currently playing content. “We believe this updated news experience will... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/6Tbqxup

Image: Nintendo When a Super Mario game gets really good, you can’t help but move around in your seat. I find myself leaning into jumps as if it’ll give me an advantage and ducking my head down to avoid flying enemies. Even after a few decades of playing these games, it’s an instinct I can’t seem to avoid — and I was never sitting still while playing Super Mario Bros. Wonder on the Nintendo Switch. Wonder is the first brand-new side-scrolling Mario game in over a decade and the first mainline entry in the series since Super Mario Odyssey in 2017. It’s also one of the best titles in the franchise to date. Wonder manages to pull from classics like Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3 , while firmly updating the formula with a seemingly inexhaustible... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/C6qc5G4

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is giving creators better tools to show certain product ads exactly when they want to in their videos. According to an announcement on Wednesday, YouTube creators will be able to add timestamps to products they tag in their videos so that a shopping button appears at an opportune moment while you’re watching. GIF: Google A GIF showing the timestamp tool. It’s a little thing, but it could make things easier for companies and creators that are working together on a video. I imagine both a creator and a sponsor will be happy about giving the creator control over when the shopping button appears. (Creators might also appreciate the controls given that YouTube is taking some other ad options away starting in... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/nsUkfSj